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The Plymouth property developer responsible for some of the city’s most prominent buildings has been banned from being a company director for eight years after investigators found a gaping black hole in his accounts.

David Trathen, aged 64, failed to keep adequate records of his business, the Insolvency Service concluded, and investigators were therefore unable to work out where £141,000 of income came from and what £407,000 was spent on.

Mr Trathen’s company Rocco Primrose ltd (RPL), formerly known as Trathen Lewis ltd, went into liquidation in 2017 owing £416,353.

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“I’m going into semi-retirement and will probably do nothing now, just get my old-age pension.”

But he stressed he had left a legacy and said Crescent Point “would not have been built” if it were not for him.

The site of the former West Park Primary School (Image: Penny Cross)

The Insolvency Service said RPL, of which Mr Trathen was a director, was incorporated in August 2013 and traded for about three-and-a-half years before entering into creditors’ voluntary liquidation in April 2017 with an estimated deficiency of £416,353.

Independent insolvency practitioners were appointed to wind up the company – registered at Houndiscombe Road but trading from Mariners Court in Sutton Harbour – but their job was made difficult because Mr Trathen “failed to deliver adequate accounting records showing the true nature of the company’s business”.

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Further investigations by the Insolvency Service found that from at least June 2016 to the end of the business in February 2017, Mr Trathen failed to ensure RPL maintained adequate accounting records.

This meant it was impossible to account for various payments out of the business, explain the source of credits to RPL’s bank account, what RPL owed to HMRC in taxes – and to determining the amount of remuneration, if any, received by Mr Trathen.

In one example, investigators were unable to account for at least £141,000 of RPL’s income, generated from the sale of 20 building plots of land now known as Lilford Gardens – the former site of West Park Primary School in Wanstead Grove.

Crescent Point will welcome students in September 2018 (Image: Penny Cross)

In another example, investigators could not explain why there had been more than £407,000 worth of expenditure from RPL’s bank account and whether this related to genuine company expenses.

And because of the lack adequate accounting records, investigators could not determine whether Mr Trathen’s statement of affairs in the liquidation was accurate and the real reason why RPL failed as a business.

As a result, the Secretary of State accepted a disqualification undertaking from Mr Trathen, and from May 1, 2018, he is banned from running companies, both directly and indirectly, for eight years.

Dave Elliott, head of insolvent investigations (Midlands & West) for the Insolvency Service said: “Directors have a duty to ensure companies maintain proper accounting records, and, following insolvency, deliver them to the office-holder.

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“Without such records, it is not possible to determine whether or not a director has discharged his duties properly, or is using a lack of documentation as a cloak for other wrongdoing.”

A disqualification order means that, without specific permission of a court, a person with a disqualification cannot act as a director of a company; take part, directly or indirectly, in the promotion, formation or management of a company or limited liability partnership; or be a receiver of a company’s property.

Disqualification undertakings are the administrative equivalent of a disqualification order but do not involve court proceedings.

Persons subject to a disqualification order are bound by a range of other restrictions.